As part of an international effort to reduce viral transmission in the border region, the U.S. These activities accounted for nearly 60 billion US dollars in bilateral trade. In 2019 alone, northbound border crossing estimates were 18.5 million pedestrians, 31.3 million personal vehicles and 1.4 million commercial vehicles annually. The border region is demographically and economically important to both countries, particularly at the Tijuana/San Diego and Mexicali/Calexico ports of entry.
īaja California is a state located in the northern part of Mexico that shares a border with California in the United States (U.S.). Therefore, SARS-CoV-2 prevalence estimates might be more accurate using population-based studies. Since many of SARS-CoV-2 infections are mild or asymptomatic, they are less likely to be detected by passive surveillance systems. However, case reporting depends on a myriad of factors, including testing capacities, type of tests used, surveillance system strategy and population health behaviors. As of January 26, 2022, more than 360 million COVID-19 cases and 5.6 million deaths had been reported across the world. It was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization (WHO) on January 31, 2020, and later characterized as a pandemic. SARS-CoV-2 is a novel respiratory coronavirus that was first reported in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The funding institution had no role in the design of the study or collection, analysis, or interpretation of data or manuscript writing.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. įunding: This work was supported by the California Healthcare Foundation, and the funds were managed through the International Community Foundation. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: The survey tool and the dataset were sent for publication to Dryad. Received: MaAccepted: JPublished: August 2, 2022Ĭopyright: © 2022 Zazueta et al. PLOS Glob Public Health 2(8):Įditor: Megan Coffee, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, UNITED STATES (2022) Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Baja California, Mexico: Findings from a community-based survey in February 2021 in the Mexico-United States border. Given the high prevalence of active SARS-CoV-2 infection in Baja California at the end of the first year of the pandemic, combined with its low seroprevalence and the considerable proportion of vaccine hesitancy, this important area along the Mexico-United States border faces major challenges in terms of health literacy and vaccine uptake, which need to be further explored, along with its implications for border restrictions in future epidemics.Ĭitation: Zazueta OE, Garfein RS, Cano-Torres JO, Méndez-Lizárraga CA, Rodwell TC, Muñiz-Salazar R, et al. Regarding vaccination willingness, 30.4% (95% CI 24.4–3 7.1) of participants said they were very unlikely to get vaccinated. While face mask use and frequent hand washing were common among participants, quarantine or social isolation at home to prevent infection was not. There was no association between border crossing in the past 6 months and SARS-CoV-2 prevalence (unadjusted OR 0.40, 95%CI 0.12–1.30). In total, 1,126 individuals (unweighted sample) were surveyed across the three cities. An interviewer-administered questionnaire assessed participants’ knowledge, attitudes, and preventive practices regarding COVID-19. RT-PCR testing was performed on nasopharyngeal swabs and SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity was determined by IgG antibody testing using fingerstick blood samples. Probabilistic three-stage clustered sampling was used to conduct a population-based household survey of residents five years and older in the three cities. The objective of this study is to estimate the seroprevalence and real time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the three most populous cities of Baja California prior to scale-up of a national COVID-19 vaccination campaign. Given limited access to testing, the population prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection is unknown. Between March 2020 and February 2021, the state of Baja California, Mexico, which borders the United States, registered 46,118 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with a mortality rate of 238.2 deaths per 100,000 residents.
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